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UNDERSTANDING GAZA FILM SERIES•
Free Admission at All Reel Work Events
Voluntary donations gladly accepted
Wednesday, February 18, 2026 • 7 PM
HYBRID EVENT: SEIU 521 Union Hall, 517 Mission St, Santa Cruz
or Register for Zoom at bit.ly/RW26Feb18
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk
Photo credit: Kino Lorber (Sepideh Farsi, 2025, 113 min, Gaza)
An intimate, first-hand perspective on life under siege in Gaza, captured through video calls between Iranian director Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Combining raw immediacy with deep humanity, the film captures daily life during the conflict through the eyes and unwaveringly optimistic presence of Fatma, whose generation is trapped in an endless cycle of war, famine, and resistance. Her conversations with Farsi bring us into the heart of the conflict. Fatma and her family were tragically killed by a targeted Israeli airstrike on April 16, one day after the film was announced as a selection of the Cannes Film Festival. (Kino Lorber)
Speaker: Howla Jardali, a Nakba survivor whose family lines have been decimated by ethnic cleansing.
Watch the trailer for Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk on YouTube.
Coexistence My Ass!
Photo credit: CoexistenceMyAss.com (Amber Fares, 2025, 95 min, Israel & Palestine)
Treat yourself to this Sundance Award-winning film that skewers comforting narratives with razor-sharp wit, deep humanity, and a fierce commitment to liberation—inviting audiences to laugh, reflect, and engage.
Noam Shuster Eliassi grew up the literal poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process before making a hard pivot to stand-up comedy and political satire. But as the region sinks deeper into devastating violence, she must meet the moment by challenging her audiences with hard truths that are no laughing matter.
Eliassi is an anti-Zionist, Jewish-Iranian Israeli who speaks fluent Arabic and grew up in a tiny village in Israel where Jews and Palestinians choose to live together.
This holiday season, invite your family to see Noam’s story that delivers big laughs while cracking open hard questions about the myth of “coexistence” and what equity and justice actually require.
Watch the trailer for Coexistence My Ass! on Vimeo.
Screened at Reel Work on December 29, 2025.
Gaza: Doctors Under Attack
Photo credit: Basement Films (Karim Shah, 2025, 65 min, Gaza)
This powerful documentary details the targeting by Israel of medical providers, hospitals, and ambulances as part of the genocide in Gaza. Following the film will be a presentation and Q&A with Iyas Sartawi, who founded, organizes and oversees Project Hope for Palestine (PH4P), a mutual aid project to address the health and well-being of Gazans. PH4P also supports medical providers and maintenance of the healthcare system, as well as journalists.
Suggested donation $20. Proceeds benefit Project Hope for Palestine.
Tabling by local pro-Palestinian groups.
Sponsor: Taxpayers Against Genocide with participation by Palestine Justice Coalition.
Screened at Reel Work on November 15, 2025.
Rage is a Responsibility, Resistance is a Right
(Out Loud with Ahmed Eldin, September 22, 2025, 54 min)
Ahmed Shihab Eldin interviews Susan Abulhawa, Palestinian novelist, poet, and activist. She speaks with unflinching honesty about Gaza, about rage, and about anger as a weapon of survival and hope. Listening to Susan is to be confronted with the unbearable truths of our time—and also to be reminded of the duty, the possibility, and the power of resistance in all its forms.
Video screened at Reel Work on October 22, 2025.
Watch Shihab Eldin’s interview with Susan Abulhawa on YouTube.
The Palestine Laboratory – Episode 2
Photo credit: Elbit Systems of America Promo (Al Jazeera, 2025, 43 min)
Exposing how Israel’s sales of military technology is aiding state control around the world. Journalist and author Antony Loewenstein investigates how surveillance and military technology developed by Israel and tested on Palestinians is marketed abroad. He finds out how the latest Israeli technology is being used to monitor refugees and migrants in Greece and along the US-Mexico border.
Video screened at Reel Work on October 22, 2025.
Watch the film The Palestine Laboratory on Al Jazeera.
Critical Voices on Gaza
Six videos screened at Reel Work on September 24, 2025.
Photo credit: Middle East Eye The Place
(Omar Rammal, 2021, 2 min)
A short film which seeks to convey the continuous theft of Palestinians’ identities and lands by Israeli settlers.
Watch the short film The Place on YouTube.
Exodus From Zionism
(Naomi Klein, 2024, 10 min, New York)
Klein gave this speech at a Brooklyn demonstration on 4/23/24. Born in 1970, she is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses in support of ecofeminism and organized labour, and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism and capitalism. In 2021, Klein took up the Professorship in Climate Justice in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Geography and has been the co-director of the Centre for Climate Justice since it was launched in 2021. (Source: Wikipedia)
Watch the speech Exodus From Zionism on YouTube.
Jenin, Jenin
(Mohammad Bakri, 2002, 16 min excerpt, West Bank)
Bakri is a Palestinian actor and film director born in the village of Bi’ina in Israel in 1953. After Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, Bakri interviewed residents of the Jenin refugee camp and produced this film based on their testimony. Some of the survivors described a massacre of hundreds of people. After three showings the film was banned by the Israeli Film Board, which claimed it was not a documentary as it showed only one side of the story.
Watch the full film Jenin, Jenin on YouTube.
The Party’s Over: Zionism Must Be Dismantled
(Ghada Karmi, March 2025. 14 min)
Karmi is a Palestinian-born academic, physician and author. Born in Jerusalem in 1939 into a Muslim family, her father was Palestinian and her mother Syrian. The family fled to Syria in 1948, later moving to London. After the 1967 War she broke up with her English husband because he supported Israel. She gained a “burning sense of injustice” around the events of her childhood, and since 1972 she has been politically active for the Palestinian cause.
Watch the interview The Party’s Over on YouTube.
I Witness Silwan
(Ahed Izhiman, 2024, 5 min, Jerusalem)
Art project in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Watch the short film I Witness Silwan on YouTube.
Walls That See: From Jerusalem to the Global Struggle for Justice
(Art Forces webinar August 17, 2025, 48 min excerpt)
A virtual gathering hosted by Art Forces which explored how art confronts injustice, drawing parallels between the “I Witness Silwan” murals in Jerusalem and similar efforts worldwide. The event featured prominent Palestinian human rights attorney and professor Noura Erakat, acclaimed writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, and minister, activist, and scholar Nyle Fort, highlighting the use of art and storytelling to resist oppression and challenge the ideologies and practices of separation and exclusion, such as those embodied by Israel’s separation barrier.
Watch the full webinar Walls That See on YouTube.
The Other
Photo credit: We Uncover Films (Joy Sela, 2024, 101 min, Palestine & Israel)
Seven years in the making, including before and after October 7th, this is a hopeful film focusing on Israeli & Palestinian peace-builders, anti-occupation activists, artists, academics, ex-fighters, bereaved parents and many more living the reality on the ground. Whether in non-violent co-resistance, peace-building, or shared community, we witness those who have only known each other through hate, bloodshed, inequality, and war, transcend beyond narratives & belief systems. They teach us that unlearning deep-seated social conditioning is possible and that we can liberate ourselves from generational trauma, hatred and fear—no matter how ingrained and legitimate those fears are.
During the course of filming, the Jewish Israeli-American director, Joy Sela, experienced the same transformation that she was documenting with her interview subjects.
Every element of the film transports the viewer—from the sweeping landscape footage, to the raw storytelling, to the original score composed by an Israeli/Palestinian duo.
During the production crew’s years on the ground building relationships, a tightly-wound network of trusted experts in the peace-building & activist communities coalesced that continues to provide public support, ensuring the film’s continuing social impact.
Watch the trailer for The Other on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work on August 27, 2025.
Gaza Journalists Under Fire
Photo credit: Brave New Films (Robert Greenwald, 2025, 40 min, Gaza)
Since October 7, 2023, at least 178 journalists have been killed in Gaza. That's more than in both World Wars combined. This poignant documentary exposes Israel's criminal conduct through the lives and deaths of three prominent Palestinian journalists.
Speaker: Filmmaker Robert Greenwald will appear by Zoom after the screening to discuss the film and answer questions.
Co-sponsor: Santa Cruz County Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California.
Watch the full film Gaza Journalists Under Fire at Brave New Films.
Screened at Reel Work on July 24, 2025.
The Encampments
(Kei Pritsker & Michael T Workman, 2025, 83 min, USA)
Students flooded Columbia University’s lawn to create the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in order to pressure their university to divest from US and Israeli weapons companies. Featuring detained student activist Mahmoud Khalil.
Co-sponsors: Santa Cruz Jews for a Free Palestine, Palestine Justice Coalition, Green Party of Santa Cruz County.
Speakers: Michael Workman, filmmaker; Thomas Seabaugh, public interest attorney; and local activists.
Donations at this event will be contributed to a fund that aids families in Gaza.
Watch the trailer for The Encampments on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work on May 17, 2025.
Everything You Have Is Yours
(Tatyana Tenenbaum, 2024, 90 min, USA)
NYC-based choreographer Hadar Ahuvia interrogates the roots of the Israeli folk dances she grew up dancing with her mother in the U.S. Confronting romanticized stories about her grandparents, settlers in 1930s Palestine, Ahuvia embarks on a personal journey to reckon with the founding mythologies and transgressions of Zionism. Through her work, a web of artistic portraits emerges—Jewish, Israeli, and Palestinian dancers living in New York City grapple with the questions of what we inherit and what we embody to carry forward.
Speaker: producer Brighid Greene will be in attendance to present the film.
Watch the trailer for Everything You Have Is Yours on Vimeo.
Screened at Reel Work on May 14, 2025.
From Ground Zero
(Aws Al-Banna, Ahmed Al-Danf, Basil Al-Maqousi 2024 115 Gaza)
Compilation of 22 short videos to give voice to Gazan filmmakers to tell the untold stories of the current war on film. Initiated by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi. Michael Moore signed on as Executive Producer.
Facilitated discussion follows the screening.
Watch the trailer for From Ground Zero on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work on April 22 & 23, 2025.
Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone
(Yousef Hammash & Jamie Roberts, 2025, 60 min, Gaza)
BBC documentary revealing daily life during the war from a young person’s perspective, narrated by a 14 year old boy, Abdullah Al-Yazouri, shows the Gazan’s incredible resilience.
Watch the full film How to Survive a War Zone on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work on March 25 & 26, 2025.
Israeli Dissidents Taking Action For Palestine
(Real Media, 2024, 14 min, UK)
Compelling interview with two Israeli dissidents took part in a Palestine Action siege of the Elbit HQ in Bristol, UK. Elbit is the largest weapons manufacturer in Israel and uses Gaza as their testing lab.
Watch the full film Israeli Dissidents Taking Action For Palestine on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work on March 26, 2025.
Boycott
(Julia Bacha, 2021, 70 min, USA)
Boycotts were once considered the moral high ground of political action. This documentary traces the impact of state legislation supported by Christian fundamentalists designed to penalize individuals and companies that choose to boycott Israel due to its human rights record. An inspiring tale of everyday Americans standing up to protect our rights in an age of shifting politics and threats to freedom of speech.
Watch the full film Boycott on YouTube.
Is Israel Losing the Social Media War?
(TRT World, 2023, 5 min, USA & Israel)
Watch the video Is Israel Losing the Social Media War? on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work 2025 on Februry 19, 2025.
No Other Land
(Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, 2024, 95 min, Palestine)
Judged Best Documentary Film at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival, this award-winning film portrays the alliance that develops between the Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers as they chronicle the destruction of the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta community and mass expulsion of its residents by Israeli soldiers.
Watch the trailer for No Other Land on YouTube. This film has not been theatrically released yet in the U.S.
Sponsored by J Street Santa Cruz, Temple Beth El and Chadeish Yameinu
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on November 19 & 20 and at Temple Beth El on January 19, 2025.
From The River To The Sea
(Brasil Paralelo, 2024, 148 min, Israel & Palestine)
Brazilian filmmakers include some Palestinian voices in an attempt at an even-handed explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while heavily dwelling on a Zionist perspective that it is part of a global religious war. This film is presented in the spirit of “Know thy enemy.”
Watch the trailer for From the River to the Sea on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on December 18.
Returning to Zarnouqa
(Zelda Edmunds, 2019, 14 min, Israel & Gaza)
Haidar Eid was raised in Gaza City after his parents were violently expelled from their home village of Zarnouqa in 1948. In 2019 a conversation emerges between Haidar and Neta Golan, an Israeli anti-Zionist comrade, as she shares with him footage from his hometown which he is denied access to. In 2023, Haidar, his wife, and their daughters become the second and third generation to be forced from their home as Israel continues its genocidal war in Palestine.
Returning to Zarnouqa depicts a vision that remains as relevant as ever:
The time for Return is now.
Watch the film Returning to Zarnouqa on Anemoia.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on Octber 22 & October 23, 2024.
From Gaza to Cuba
(Frank Rojazz, 2024, 14 min, Cuba & Gaza)
While his home in Gaza is under siege, Murid Abukhater struggles to stay focused on his mission at the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana: becoming a doctor so he can return home and help his people.
Watch the film From Gaza to Cuba on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on Octber 22 & October 23, 2024.
The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza
(Al Jazeera, 2024, 79 min, Gaza)
As Israel’s bombing campaign continues in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis deepens to catastrophic levels, the Biden administration has not wavered in its support for Israel. United States weapons transfers—from 2,000-pound bombs to artillery shells and tanks—have been a crucial part of the Israeli military campaign. Fault Lines worked with journalists in Gaza to profile three families as they try to survive the war.
Watch the trailer on YouTube.
Watch the full film The Night Won’t End on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on September 24 & September 25, 2024.
Walled Off
(Vin Arfuso, 2024, 90 min, Palestine & Israel)
A secret museum in an art hotel located in Bethlehem near the Israeli West Bank barrier sparks intrigue when it’s revealed to be a creation of controversial artist Banksy. The hotel highlights the reality of life under Israeli military occupation. The film journeys through the hotel with “the worst view in the world” as well as the Occupied Palestinian territories and relevant past to dismantle the mainstream media’s bias towards the Palestinian struggle for freedom and equality and to highlight the importance of creative resistance as a form of protest.
Watch the trailer on YouTube
Rent the full film Walled Off on Amazon.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on August 27 & August 28, 2024.
1948: Creation & Catastrophe
(Andy Trimlett & Ahlam Muhtaseb, 2017, 85 min, Palestine & Israel)
Through riveting and moving personal recollections of both Palestinians and Israelis, this documentary reveals the shocking events of the most pivotal year in the most controversial conflict in the world. It tells the story of the establishment of Israel as seen through the eyes of the people who lived it. Rather than being a history lesson, this documentary is a primer for the present. It is simply not possible to make sense of what is happening in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today without an understanding of 1948.
Watch the trailer on YouTube
Watch the full film 1948: Creation & Catastrophe on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on July 23 & July 24, 2024.
Where Olive Trees Weep
(Zaya & Mauricio Benazzo, 2024, 104 min, Palestine)
A searing window into the struggles and resilience of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation. It explores themes of loss, trauma, and the quest for justice. The film follows, among others, Palestinian journalist and therapist Ashira Darwish, grassroots activist Ahed Tamimi, Israeli journalist Amira Hass, and the trauma-healing work of Dr. Gabor Maté. Ancient landscapes bear deep scars, having witnessed the brutal reality of ancestral land confiscation, expulsions, imprisonment, home demolitions, water deprivation, and denial of basic human rights. Yet, through the veil of oppression, we catch a glimpse of resilience—deep roots that have carried the Palestinian people through decades of darkness and shattered lives. This emotional journey bares the humanity of the oppressed while grappling with the question: what makes the oppressor so ruthlessly blind to its own cruelty?
Watch the trailer on YouTube and the full film Where Olive Trees Weep on the film’s website.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on June 23 & June 25, 2024.
Birth of a Conflict, Episode 1
(Avi Merkado Ettedgui & Yaron Niski, 2022, 55 min, Israel)
This 3-part documentary, informed by newly declassified British diplomatic files, sheds new and surprising light on the British Mandate, the 30 years of British rule in Palestine from 1917 to 1948.
Episode 1: A Conflict Requires a Territory. The British Empire’s arrival in the Middle-East complicated the region by pitting ethnic groups against each other through well-practiced divide-and-conquer colonial management techniques.
Discussion led by UCSC professor Bruce Thompson.
Sponsored by the Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival.
Missed This Event? Watch all 3 episodes of Birth of a Conflict on ChaiFlicks (with a free 7-day trial subscription).
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on May 2, 2024.
Birth of a Conflict, Episode 2
(Avi Merkado Ettedgui & Yaron Niski, 2022, 55 min, Israel)
Episode 2: The story of how the Jewish-Arab conflict turned from a territorial quarrel between two national movements into a religious conflict. During this period, the Great Arab Revolt against British rule was crushed with brutal collective punishment including indiscriminate bombing and house destruction.
Discussion led by UCSC professor Bruce Thompson.
Sponsored by the Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival.
Missed This Event? Watch all 3 episodes of Birth of a Conflict on ChaiFlicks (with a free 7-day trial subscription).
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on May 9, 2024.
Birth of a Conflict, Episode 3
(Avi Merkado Ettedgui & Yaron Niski, 2022, 55 min, Israel)
Episode 3: The Fall of Empires. The downfall of the Arab national movement was concurrent with the rise of the Zionist movement as it made its journey towards creating a Jewish state, all in a decade marked by World War II and the collapse of the British Empire.
Discussion led by UCSC professor Bruce Thompson.
Sponsored by the Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival.
Missed This Event? Watch all 3 episodes of Birth of a Conflict on ChaiFlicks (with a free 7-day trial subscription).
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on May 16, 2024.
Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza
(Caryl Churchill, 2009, 10 min, UK)
Local actors who are members of Santa Cruz Jews for a Free Palestine offer a dramatic reading of this short play spanning seven decades of Jewish/Israeli history, written by British playwright Caryl Churchill, known for addressing the abuse of power in her plays. Written in 2009 in response to Israel’s 2008/9 assault on the Gaza Strip, the play was blasted by critics and press and labeled anti-Semitic, yet opened to full houses at the Royal Court in London.
Missed This Event? Several versions of the play are posted on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on May 8, 2024.
5 Broken Cameras
(Guy Davidi & Emad Burnat, 2011, 94 min, Palestine)
A Palestinian farmer’s chronicle of his village of Bil’in in the West Bank including their nonviolent resistance to the building of a separation barrier cutting of their lands for a settlement and the repressive actions of the Israeli army.
Co-sponsors: Resource Center for Nonviolence, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz for Bernie, Palestine Justice Committee.
Missed This Event? Watch the full film 5 Broken Cameras on YouTube.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on May 8, 2024.
Israelism
(Erin Axelman & Sam Eilertsen, 2024, 84 min, USA & Israel)
Portrays the heavy socialization of young people in many Zionist households in the US and Israel, as told by a few who later questioned that world view.
Watch the trailer on YouTube and the full film Israelism for free on Tubi or for rent on other streaming services.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on May 5, 2024.
Wrestling Jerusalem
(Dylan Kussman, 2016, 90 min, USA)
Writer-actor Aaron Davidman conjures a host of different characters while seeking answers to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He takes a multidimensional journey into the heart of the Middle East, and the intersection of politics, identity and spiritual yearning. He embodies and gives voice to 17 different characters on all sides of the existential divide – deftly moving between male and female, Jewish and Muslim, Israeli and Arab – modeling what it takes truly to bear witness through the eyes of the other, challenging long-held beliefs with sharp and unblinking observation.
Watch the trailer on YouTube and the full film Wrestling Jerusalem on Tubi or Amazon Prime and other streaming services.
Screened at Reel Work 2024 on April 25, 2024.
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